Interior climate control and air circulation is difficult in certain applications, particularly including large open structural areas such as found in a factory or warehouse setting. This difficulty is encountered in both hot and cold seasonal conditions, where heat during cold weather heating migrates towards the ceiling of a building and humidity tends to migrate down during hot and humid weather conditions. Therefore, there is an interest in forcing air from the ceiling, down, towards an occupied main floor during cooler weather, thus saving costs for heating, and circulating air more generally in warmer weather conditions resulting in a perceived cooler environment due to evaporation. Solutions to these conditions include forced ventilation through ceiling-based plenums in HVAC applications. Another solution is the use of ceiling fans to circulate the ambient air. However, both of these solutions are inadequate for circulating large volumes of air in large open areas such as is common in a factory or warehouse setting.
HVLS fans provide improvement over HVAC systems and/or traditional ceiling fans by moving larger volumes of air. These systems have their own limitations including relatively low efficiency in both the amount of energy used and amount of circulated air per unit of energy use.
STOL technology is a known solution for allowing aircraft to take off and land within constrained short distances. STOL technology has been adapted to aircraft airfoil profiles for providing improved lift and efficient movement of air under slower take off or landing speeds. Known aircraft wing profiles utilizing STOL design technology include EPPLER-420 and FX63-137 profiles. But, these airfoil profiles utilizing STOL design technology have not been adapted for use in HVLS fan systems.
In addition, due to their size and weight resulting from fans reaching diameters from 12 feet to 20 feet, or more, there is risk to persons and equipment below the fan in the event of a failure causing a portion, or all, of the fan to fall.
Therefore, there is opportunity and need for improving air circulation systems in large open areas. Further, there is need for improving HVLS fan systems to provide higher efficiencies and maximize airflow in large open spaces such as warehouses, manufacturing facilities, places of worship, gymnasiums/health clubs, auto dealerships and more. There is also a need for providing safety measures in the implementation of HVLS fan systems.